Wednesday, November 03, 2021

Saxy Time

You know that good tiredness feeling that one gets from a physical exertion that was more related to being pleasurable than a chore? That's how I feel now. And no, it's not because I had put in my 2k words for the day already for NaNoWriMo, but because I felt sufficiently uncomfortable enough that I went ahead and pulled up my tenor saxophone and played about two to three hours of whatever [pop] music I have lying around, pausing only once to replace the mouthpiece cushion because I had more or less chewed through(!) the one that was placed since two years ago.

The music was from an eclectic list that included absolutely nothing specific to saxophone---think 80s mando-pop, 90s Japanese drama opening/ending themes, and some 古曲 that was meant for the 笛子, mostly in 简谱 but played in the specified key. This meant wrestling E♭ (easy), D♭ (wtf?!), G (easy), A♭ with many chromatic notes and leaps (I'm staring at you, 《傻女》) among others. My fingers have not had such a work out in a looooooooong time. Diaphragm feels great---getting all those lovely low notes out of the tenor sax is just so liberating.

Mmm... so yes. Forearm muscles are a little tired, but nothing that is out of specifications. I even got the chance to try out some pieces whose score I had obtained but never really played before---those were a doozy.

Man... I miss making music with other people. I wonder when we can get back to rehearsals. Knowing how things work here though, it might be a long time more before it can happen.

I don't even know we will even have an orchestra at that point. Only thing I can do is just pray and let God decide.

And that's about it. A short entry. I've gotta save all my words for NaNoWriMo. Writing 50×1000-word stories is feeling more draining than I had earlier anticipated.

Till the next update.

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